Tide Pools
by philofthefuture
Summary: Bradin meets someone unexpected that sets his new life in an even newer spin.
1. Meeting

Disclaimer: The WB owns Summerland and it's characters. I own my computer. And anything or anyone that's not on the show. Reviews of any kind are welcome, even the ones that are just from people acting like jerks since they give me and many others of better intelligence lots to laugh at. Happy reading!

Sixteen-year-old Bradin Westerly banged his way up the staircase to his sisters room and threw the door open.

"Nikki, you're a girl," he began as the younger girl glanced at him.

"Very good, Bradin." Nikki rolled her eyes and tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her ear as she sat in front of her mirror.

Bradin continued determinedly. "What I mean is, you're a girl, so you know how their minds work."

"Sometimes," Nikki said dryly, still observing her face in the mirror.

"So how do I get a girl to like me?" Bradin sighed, and then added in an undertone, "I can't believe I've stooped to asking my little sister about this."

Nikki twirled to face him. "I heard that. And this had better not be about Erica."

"It's not." Bradin clenched his teeth together like he always did when he thought about Erica. "I'm just talking about girls in general."

"Well," Nikki said slowly, "We don't like jerks."

It was Bradin's turn to roll his eyes. "If that's all the advice you're going to give me, I might as well have just gone to Aunt Ava."

"I'm serious. Just don't be stupid. Too many guys act like morons these days. Just be nice and honest and yourself."

"So you're saying all I have to do is be nice? Isn't that a little too easy?"

"And treat her like you would treat a surfboard autographed by Tony Hawk." Nikki said, dabbing on lip gloss.

"Umm, Nikki?"

"Yeah?"

"Never mind." Bradin grinned and left, shutting the door behind him.

Bradin entered Jay's surf shop, his black wetsuit making him feel, as it always did, like a real surfer, not someone who was just learning.

"Eric's not here today, mate," Jay called from behind a rack of surfboards, his Australian accent ringing through his store, "She's got stuff to do."

Bradin scowled a little. "All right." He still didn't know what to think about the relationship between Jay and Erica Spalding. All he knew was that he wasn't prepared to forgive either of them for a while. Erica was the first girl he had ever really fallen for, and he knew that part of him still wasn't over her.

He walked out of the surf shop, still carrying his surfboard. His teacher wasn't here, but that didn't mean he wanted to go back home. He had never known the ocean back in Kansas, and now that he had experienced it, he loved it.

Making his way out the door and onto the beach, the sound of the many people talking and laughing met his ears. For some reason, it didn't thrill him as it usually did. Today, the hustle and bustle was just annoying.

Instead of taking to the water where all the other surfers were, he went to the right, wanting to go somewhere there wasn't the huge rumble of a crowd.

He walked along the stretch of beach, his board still tucked under his arm. He knew he wasn't supposed to surf by himself, but if he didn't get in the ocean soon he was going to freak.

"So what if Erica's not here?" he muttered to himself as he kicked up sand, "I don't need her all the time."

He didn't know how long he had walked, but soon he couldn't hear the voices coming from the main beach anymore. He looked around at where he now stood, a deserted part of the beach with many small tide pools, rocks on the land and jutting out into the sea.

He started to have second thoughts. He was just a beginning surfer but even he knew better than to practice where there were tons of rocks he could crack his head on.

Still not wanting to go back, he opted to climb over the rock in front of him and see if it was any clearer on the other side. Making sure his board was still tucked firmly under his arm, he made his way up the rocks. It was a little like climbing a fence, only fences weren't so jagged.

"Ouch!" He gave a shout as he jumped the last few feet to the sand on the other side, catching his foot on a particularly sharp piece of rock. Dropping his board, he sank to his knees, groaning as blood leaked from his cut, staining the sand around him red.

"That doesn't look so good."

Bradin jumped up as the voice startled him, then promptly fell flat on his face as searing pain shot up his leg. Looking up and spitting sand out of his mouth he found himself facing at someone he hadn't noticed as his back was turned climbing down the rocks.

There was a large tide pool a few yards away on another group of rocks, and someone was crouching over it, magnifying glass in hand. Bradin guessed it was a girl from the sound of her voice, but if she hadn't spoken, he wouldn't have been able to tell. She wore goggles that took up her entire face and enlarged her eyes so that they were the size of saucers, giving her a bizarre, insect-like look. She was covered from head to toe in a long, white lab coat with three letters embroidered on the right pocket: CAL.

The girl cocked her head and looked at him, seeming puzzled by his lack of speech.

"Did you knock your head against those rocks too?"

"What? Oh, no," Bradin stuttered. It was just too weird. Here he was, seemingly in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden Bill Nye the Science Guy turned up? "What are you doing?"

The girl pocketed her magnifying glass and pushed her goggles up on top of her head. The enormous green eyes that had been so prominent before were still huge as they took in every detail before her. She removed a pencil that had been tucked in her hair, keeping it out of her way, and loose brown curls fell about her shoulders.

"I _was_ studying the tide pool," she said as she stood up and coming towards him, "until you decided to fall over the rocks."

Without another word, she reached down and took his hand, pulling him up to a sitting position. "Let me see your foot."

He was too surprised to do anything but let her.

"You really cut yourself good," she informed him, taking item after item from the huge pockets of her lab coat. Bradin watched in amazement as she cleaned his wound with an antibacterial wipe, put ointment on it and wrapped it in a gauze strip.

"What are you, a walking pharmacy?" he asked wonderingly.

The girl looked up sharply, and then broke into peals of laughter.

"No, I'm a scientist. Or I would like to be one someday," she told him seriously, "you just never know when an accident is going to occur on the job. You have to be prepared. There, you're fine, it wasn't that bad, but if it hadn't been fixed within the minutes you could have bled to death."

Bradin gazed in horror at her until the corners of her mouth twitched up in a mischievous smile.

"That's not funny."

"Yes it is. Try to walk on it now."

Bradin got up, gingerly putting pressure on his right foot.

"Geez! It stings!" he cried as another jolt of pain shot up his leg, though not as bad as before.

"It's going to," the girl said, putting her medical supplies back into her pockets, "The point is, we didn't have to amputate." She took her magnifying glass back out of her initialed pocket and went back over to the tide pool, lying flat on her stomach and peering in.

"Is this what you do for fun?" Bradin asked teasingly. He was in a better mood now that he wasn't dyeing the whole beach red, "Sit here and wait for guys to fall over rocks so you can patch them up?"

"Only in the afternoon." She smirked at him. "Why did you come all the way out here anyway? No one ever comes here."

"Except for you," Bradin pointed out.

"Yeah, except for me. And now you've invaded my private place."

"Oh, so now you're going to have to kill me to keep it a secret I suppose," Bradin said.

"Naturally."

Bradin laughed. "Actually, I was looking for a place to just surf and be away from everyone."

"It's nice just to be alone every once in a while, isn't it?" she asked, looking away from her magnifying glass.

"Yeah, yeah it is. So, um, care if I join you?"

She snorted. "No offence, but you don't look like the nature type to me. Do you even know what a tide pool is?"

Bradin straightened. "Sure I do. It's a pool formed by the tides."

"Oh, you're absolutely brilliant. Too bad you weren't alive during Einstein's time. You could've run circles around him."

Bradin laughed again at the smile on her face and left his board where it was to go kneel beside her. "Enlighten me, then."

"All right, Mister Mental Giant-"

"-Bradin," he interjected.

"All right, Bradin then." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him down so he too was lying on the rocks right next to her. "How big do you suppose this one is?" she asked.

"Umm, I don't know. About three feet long, one foot deep."

"And do you consider that big?"

Bradin laughed. "No." He stopped laughing when he saw that she wasn't laughing with him.

"You don't? Well, what sort of things do you see in there?"

Bradin looked at her, puzzled, then focused on the little pool of water.

"Well, I see rocks and seaweed and stuff."

"Look harder."

Bradin looked harder. He had never really noticed tide pools all the times he had been to the beach. Now he put all of his attention on the one in front of him.

"A starfish!" he cried excitedly. He hadn't even seen it before when he had just glanced at the pool. It was half hidden behind a rock, bright orange and soft looking. As soon as he shouted he felt himself turning red. What was he, some kind of loser getting all worked up over a starfish? Would she think he was stupid or something?

"Good. What else do you see?" She was still deep in concentration over the pool and him. Bradin could tell that she wouldn't think he was dumb and kept going with renewed enthusiasm.

"Crabs! And a school of tiny fish."

"See? Now you're actually looking at it," she remarked, a bright smile now on her face as she looked at him. Bradin could do nothing but smile too as he noticed how pretty she was when she smiled and didn't have her goggles on.

"All right," she said briskly, "Now do you think it's small?"

Bradin still wasn't sure what she was getting at. "No?" he guessed.

"What a wimpy answer. Convince me."

"No." He said it more firmly this time.

"Exactly right. It might just be a little pool of water to us, but to that starfish, it's an entire world. It's never known anything outside of it's little pool. It doesn't even know that there's a huge ocean a few yards away with more life than it could ever imagine."

Bradin could feel himself getting caught up in her energy and determination.

"But wouldn't it go into the ocean when high tide comes back over it's pool?" he asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. That's what's so fascinating. You can't really predict what's going to happen to that little starfish. We're sitting here looking at it right now, and if we were to come back tomorrow it could be gone forever out into the sea." She sighed happily.

"Or it could still be here."

She looked up at him for the first time since examining the pool. "Yeah, it could."

Bradin felt a sudden surge of adrenaline and jumped to his feet, catapulting off the rocks and throwing himself down onto the sand, staring at the endless expanse of blue sky.

"What was that for?" she grinned at him, a bit of concern etched all over her face.

Bradin didn't answer at once. Instead, he kept looking at the sky, pretending he was a starfish and the little stretch of beach was his tide pool. If he just kept looking, he felt as though the sky was close enough to touch and at the same time, millions of miles away.

"What's your name?" he asked, sitting up. "I've just realized that we've been talking this long and I still don't know your name."

She sat up and pointed to her pocket.

"Cal?" Bradin squinted at her though the sun. "I thought that was just, like, initials of a science school or something that you stole your coat from."

"Funny. My school is a long way from here and doesn't begin with a C."

"Oh, so you don't live here?"

"I live in Cali, but not here. I'm visiting my cousin for the summer."

"Oh, so I'm sure you would rather be spending time with your cousin." Bradin flopped down on his stomach again and rested his chin in his hands.

"Actually…" Cal's voice trailed off a little, "The reason I'm out here is sort of because I don't want to spend time with her."

"If it's not being too nosy, why?" Bradin asked, curious.

Cal sighed. "I don't like her very much. We're so different and she gets mad at me a lot. I don't know." She broke off, frustrated. "To be honest, I like you much better in the twenty minutes we've known each other than her in the fifteen years I've known her."

"I'm flattered."

"As you should be."

"Well, I'm sorry that you have to be here the whole summer with someone you don't really like," Bradin told her.

"She's just so difficult to get along with," Cal sighed, "I'd much rather come out here and study the tide pools and stuff."

Bradin looked from her, then over his shoulder to his deserted board. "Do you surf?"

Cal looked surprised only for a second then chuckled nervously. "Are you kidding? No way. I read. I use microscopes. My athletic coordination is pretty much zero."

"You live in California and you don't surf?" Bradin pretended to look shocked. "You jest!"

"I'm sure you're good enough for both of us," Cal said, brushing a few strands of hair out of her eyes.

"Well, actually, I sort of just moved here. From Kansas." Bradin trailed his fingers in the sand.

"Really? Kansas? As in 'We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto'?"

"That's the one. I've only just started taking lessons."

"It looks fun though. Too bad I'd pretty much kill myself."

"You would not."

"Wanna bet?"

"Sure. How much?"

"You don't need to bet." A sneaky glint appeared in Cal's eyes.

"Oh yeah?"

"You're forgetting something," Cal said to him, "If I _did_ go surfing and it looked like I was about to drown it would be up to you to save me."

"Why's that?"

"Because, Bradin, I saved your life so you would owe me one."

Bradin laughed. "When did we agree on that? And when did I even ask you to save me?"

"Oh, so you're telling me you wanted to lie there, bleeding all over the sand until the tide came and washed you away?" Cal stood up and hopped off the rock, going to stand over Bradin, who flipped back over on his back to look up at her.

"It wouldn't have been so bad," he shrugged, "Maybe when the tide came in it could have formed another tide pool I could have lived in. With lots of starfish."

"Of course."

They looked at each other for a few seconds until Cal collapsed on the sand next to him, laughing wildly.

"You know what?" she choked out between peals of laughter, "If my cousin saw me now she'd probably tell me I'm a little geek that she doesn't want to have to deal with."

Bradin stopped laughing abruptly and grew quiet. "She sounds like a real witch."

"She's a head case all right," Cal agreed, "and, actually, as painful as it is, I have to get back to her house. My aunt and uncle will be there, wondering why I ditched her today to come here."

"Oh. All right. Well, see you."

Cal got to her feet and started to walk the way Bradin had come to the little cove, only she didn't cut herself on the rocks. Bradin grinned at her back.

When she reached the other side of the natural rock wall she peered over at him.

"Get yourself to a doctor, Bradin!" she called, "I might have saved you temporarily, but you still need to get it checked out."

Her head disappeared and Bradin got to his feet and went over to the tide pool. He watched the starfish for a long time and it was almost dark before he finally started to make his way back to his own aunt's house.

As he reached it, his Aunt Ava came out the front door. For a moment, Bradin thought she was about to yell at him for being home late, but she didn't.

"Erica called. She wants to know if any of us have seen her cousin that's here visiting."

Bradin stopped walking.

"What did she say her cousin's name was?" he asked slowly.

"Callie," Aunt Ava said, sounding a little nervous, "Erica said she'd probably be wearing a long, white lab coat, so she wouldn't exactly be hard to notice. Have you seen her?"

"She's Erica's cousin?"

"Yes, her younger cousin, Bradin!" Aunt Ava cried, "Have you seen her?!"

Bradin gave a low whistle. "Ohhh, boy."


	2. Ericka's Rage

* * *

Thank you to gpotter, HankErin, dolphinchick2568, beautyqueen321, atruwriter, VolcanoGirl, LenaGirl, Peaches87 and Banana Belle for reviewing! You are all too nice.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Summerland. If I did, I would have way more money and wouldn't be writing on this crappy computer.

Enjoy! And I'm sorry it's so short.

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Erika Spalding crashed through the bushes into her backyard, then straight up the back stairs and into her house. She was in a towering temper, her dark eyes ablaze with fury.

"Where is she?" she screeched, throwing open doors, "Where is she?"

Her parents were sitting in the living room drinking coffee when she poked her head in and shouted.

"Erika, for the love of God, stop shouting," her mother said faintly, putting a hand over her heart, "Everyone within five miles can hear you."

"Good!" Erika cried, "You know what she did? She ran away from me today. I looked for her all day long and I couldn't find her! I could have been spending my time doing something better than babysitting that little brat!"

"Cal?" her father asked, looking confused, "But she's in her room. She said that you told her she could go home since you wanted to spend some time with someone at the surf shop."

"Bullshit."

"Stop it, Erika." Mrs. Spalding's face was red now. "Stop it right now. I don't care how you do it, but you and Callie need to find some way to get along. If she doesn't want to spend time with you, it's your fault, you know."

"Fine, whatever." Erika walked out of the room. She knew she was acting a bit out of line, but there was something about her cousin that made her feel like punching something. She _had_ spent all day looking for her, and hadn't even made it to Bradin's lesson, not to mention all the time she had missed out on with Jay.

"Ohh, when I get my hands on her…"

She made her way down the hallway that led to the bedrooms in the back of the house. Callie had her very own bedroom for when she visited. She brought all of her things with her since she was going to be staying for a while, so it looked to Erika as though she was never going to leave, not exactly a happy thought.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she whispered as she threw open the door to Callie's room. She made sure to keep her voice low to ward off any parents that might want to do more yelling.

"Um, reading?" Cal looked up from her bed, eyes innocently widened.

"You know what I mean. Why did you do that today?" Erica fumed. Cal was still wearing that stupid lab coat. For some reason, it, along with the huge goggles, just served to tick the older girl off even more.

"You mean go actually have fun? Well, you were ignoring me, so I figured you wouldn't even notice I was gone," Cal said, flipping a page.

"You made me go through a lot of crap today."

"Oh yeah? You miss out on some of your make-out time with some guy? Maybe that Jay guy from the surfing place? Or is it someone else today? I've only been here for today and already I know my older cousin is the biggest tramp in-"

"Shut up," Erika hissed furiously, "If you're going to be here for the rest of the summer, just do it away from me!"

"Fine," Cal said conversationally, "But I would appreciate it if you stop spitting all over my floor. That's sort of disgusting."

"Do something like this again and you'll wish you never came here, okay?" Erika breathed.

"All right."

"I mean it."

"I'm sure you do."

With that, Erika slammed the door on her younger cousin and slumped against the wall, still breathing hard, throat burning with the sudden rush of tears that fell onto her cheeks. Part of her wanted to go back into Cal's room and wring her neck, and another part of her, a smaller part, fiercely wished they could be friends.

"Never going to happen," Erika sighed, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, "I am never going to forgive that little brat."

She got briskly to her feet, feeling refreshed. She needed to go surf. If that didn't make her feel better, nothing would.

She went to her own room and grabbed her board. As she stood in front of her full-length mirror, tying her long hair into a ponytail she made a face. Everyone was always telling her she was beautiful. She supposed she was, since she had managed to ensnare the heart of more than one guy over the years, not to mention the recently arrived Bradin, though she would not let him know that she realized it. It was just getting more and more complicated now that she and Jay had a thing going again.

She frowned and threw on some flip-flops.

"Mom, Dad, I'm going surfing," she called as she reached out a hand to open the front door.

"All right, honey." Her mom seemed to have changed her tactic. Instead of yelling, her voice was now gentle. "And, sweetie, if all this feuding between you and Callie is about what happened four years ago, just let it go."

Erika, froze, not looking towards the living room. For a moment she trembled with rage. Then, without answering, she left her house, slamming the door behind her.

--------------

"Hey, Bradin, will you help me with my batting for a little while? Cam is out with Nikki and no one else is around, I don't think. Well, Aunt Ava is, but she's cooking. Will you help?"

Bradin lifted his face from his pillow to look up at the slightly chubby, smiling face of his little brother, Derrick.

Bradin sighed. Why did Derrick always have to be so enthusiastic about everything? His little kid charm always made Bradin feel slightly guilty if he said no to whatever Derrick was asking.

"Actually," Bradin began slowly, "I'm not really in the mood to do anything but lie here for a while. Sorry."

"Oh." A slight frown flickered over the younger boy's face. "That's all right. I can go watch TV."

He began to shuffle out the door, but as he reached the threshold, he looked back, an uncommonly concerned look on his face that few children his age ever achieved.

"Are you okay, Bradin?" he asked, his voice small, "You don't really seem like yourself."

Bradin looked back at him, surprised. "Um, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay."

Bradin watched his retreating back. He felt bad about denying his little brother playing time, but he just needed to relax for a little while. Unless he was careful, he could sense that he was going to have a hard time on his hands. He didn't know what made him think it, he guessed it was just that ever since his parents died and he, Nikki and Derrick had come to Playa Linda he hadn't experienced anything but hard times, first with Erika, then Sarah…

He punched his pillow. It wasn't fair. Wasn't it time for him to have some real fun and not be caught up in all this drama?

"Starting right now," he said out loud, going to stand by his window, looking out at the glittering ocean, "I'm going to try to stay out of anything like that."

With that personal goal finally realized and said out loud, he suddenly felt better and took a deep breath, feeling refreshed and relieved. He began to bound downstairs, filled with new energy when a sharp twang pieced his leg.

He looked down at his bound foot and shrugged. "Well, first things first." He kept going, slowly this time. "Aunt Ava, I need to go to the doctor!"


End file.
